Cummings on verge of Aston Villa loan

Colorado Rapids striker Omar Cummings is coming off the best season of his MLS career, just led his team to an MLS Cup title, and could be poised for a shot at the English Premier League.

Colorado managing director Jeff Plush told the Denver Post on Monday that the Rapids are in talks with Aston Villa about a potential short loan move for Cummings during the winter.

"Omar is a Colorado Rapids player," Plush told the Denver Post. "We explained to Aston Villa that we would be open to discussing a loan agreement for Omar until our season starts on March 19 if it benefited Omar and the Colorado Rapids."

One potential hang-up could be Cummings securing a work permit. He plays regularly for Jamaica, but because of Jamaica's low FIFA ranking over the course of the year, Cummings may not qualify. Jamaica just made a 24-point jump in the most recent ranking, from 82nd in November to 58th after winning the Digicel Cup.

Under UK Work Permit rules, in order for a player to secure a work permit his national team must be have an average ranking in the Top 70 over the previous two years to qualify and Jamaica has been ranked lower than that for the majority of the past two years.

What do you think of this development? Could you see Cummings doing well in England? Hoping he makes a permanent move?

30 Responses to Cummings on verge of Aston Villa loan

i’d like to watch that. he is quality and has good pace and villa could use a finisher. plus, it would be nice if he played really well, boosting the respect for MLS England and the rest of the world even further, showing there really is true quality all throughout the league

He is closer than expected to a work permit. Jamaica has an average FIFA ranking of 74 over the past two years (it was ranked in the high 60s most of 2009, but then fell to the low 80s) and the argument will be made that it has improved and its current ranking is the relevant one—especially since Omar (and actually Dane Richards) is such an important part of the JMNT now).

Villa have 4 forwards tops, Gabby, Heskey, Carew and Delfouneso. Carew is on the outs with the Gaffer, Heskey just got injured, Delfouneso is a reserve team striker. Gabby is quality but he can’t go it alone. So yes, great move for everbody and oh definitely he’ll see plenty of time on the pitch.

That’s so cute…… It’s almost like he believes it. In a world of minnows and sharks, we’re still very much the minnows. If Aston wants him, they’ll take him and there is very little he or the MLS can do about it beyond bartering the best deal possible.

He’s your player until the rest of the world comes calling….. Until the chains come off, THAT’S our reality.

Colorado turned down an offer over the summer for Cummings from a Mexican club (I can’t remember who), this may be a chance for them to show off his talents in Europe so that they can sell him in a year or so.
I think if it goes through it’s a win for everyone involved.

I agree (with SBI) that the rule is probably meant to limit imports to top players from good national teams. This would seem to increase the quality in the English leagues, but the end result is different. The big teams can attract (and afford) the top players, but mid- and low-level teams cannot. So the quality at the top of the league is very good, but the rest of the league has more trouble attracting talent. So the “haves” win and the “have nots” don’t.

Having wrote all that, I’m not sure how to explain the increased parity in the EPL this season.

Yeah, it seems like that would be penalizing a player for having a bad national team.

If Wales, for example, were located in Central America (odd hypothesis, I know) Gareth Bale/Ryan Giggs wouldn’t be good enough for the EPL? Wales is way below Jamaica.

Just an odd rule. I’d rather they factored national team quality in with a decision, as opposed to making it a hard and fast rule, but again, it’s hard to say how many hard and fast rules there actually are in soccer.